What Is Surface Pattern Design (And Could It Be Your Next Income Stream?)

Ever wondered how those beautiful florals end up on notebooks, wrapping paper, fabric, or even mugs? That’s the magic of surface pattern design — and it could become a flexible, scalable creative income stream for you.

In this episode of The Creative Juggle Joy Podcast, Kaylie Edwards (creative mentor & toddler mum) and Delores Naskrent (digital artist & educator) break down:
✨ What surface pattern design really is (hint: motifs, repeats & more)
🎨 Who it’s for — from traditional artists and illustrators to handmade sellers and digital crafters
🌼 How pattern design can help you diversify your offers and tap into the “design once, sell again” model
🖌️ Common myths: “I can’t draw!” “It’s too technical!” “The market’s too saturated!”
📚 Real ideas for niches, audience segments, and products you could create
💡 A peek into how Affinity Designer (and Delores’s clever templates) can make your process simpler and more fun

If you’re curious about expanding your art or handmade business, this is the perfect introduction — whether you want to add pattern designs to your own products, sell digital patterns, or license your work.

🆓 Mentioned in This Episode:
✔️ Bloom & Repeat Free Workshop – Grab the replay:bloom and repeat workshop replay | Delores Naskrent/DeloresArt School
✔️ Mastering Surface Pattern Design in Affinity Designer Masterclass – Enrol here: Affinity Designer Surface Pattern Design Masterclass – deloresartcanada

🎧 Listen now, share with a creative friend, and remember:
Keep creating, keep juggling — and most importantly, keep finding joy in the process.

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Delores Naskrent - Website & Digital Art School - Instagram - Facebook - Pinterest - Youtube

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Transcript

Kaylie Edwards (00:05)
If you've ever looked at a beautifully printed notebook, a roll of wrapping paper or fabric covered in florals and thought, how did someone even make that? Today's episode is for you.

Delores Naskrent (00:17)
We're diving into the world of surface pattern design. What it is, why it's everywhere, and why it might just be the perfect next step in your creative journey.

Kaylie Edwards (00:28)
And if you're new here, I'm Kaylie Edwards, a creative business mentor and toddler mom from North Wales in the UK. I work with handmade sellers and artists to help them create more flexible, scalable income streams through courses, digital products and gentle marketing strategies.

Delores Naskrent (00:45)
And I'm Delores Naskrent a digital and traditional artist and educator based in Canada. I specialize in teaching creative tools like Affinity Designer and Procreate, especially for those diving into the world of digital art and surface pattern design.

Kaylie Edwards (01:02)
Together we co-host the Creative Juggle Joy, a space for artists, makers and multi-passionate creatives who are balancing life, family and building a business that works with their reality.

Delores Naskrent (01:14)
In a nutshell, surface pattern design is creating visual elements, often called motifs or icons or elements, depending on where you live, assets, some people call them, and then taking these and arranging them into repeating patterns that can be printed onto all kinds of products.

Kaylie Edwards (01:31)
And a motif can be anything, a flower, a shape, a character or even a doodle that you can turn into part of a repeating design. It doesn't have to be complicated.

Delores Naskrent (01:45)
Yeah, you're right. You'll see surface pattern designs on everything from fabric to wallpaper. Those are kind of the obvious ones, but they're on greeting cards. I've seen them on planners and wrapping paper and upholstery, flooring, packaging. I mean, it's everywhere. And the amazing part is once you create a pattern, it can be used over and over in multiple ways.

Kaylie Edwards (02:08)
Yes, so you may be thinking who is this for? This is such a juicy creative path for handmade sellers, digital artists, other creatives who are thinking about digital products but don't know where to start.

Delores Naskrent (02:24)
Yeah, it's also ideal for all digital artists, illustrators, even traditional artists who want to make their physical work or take their physical work and digitize it so that they can scale it, you know what mean? So they can use it in more places.

Kaylie Edwards (02:41)
Yes, and let's be honest, I'm not selling patterns yet. I'm still experimenting in my little pockets of time I have between my toddler and this business. So figuring out what I love is another thing I'm doing. I've got a toddler still mostly at home and I'm focused on growing my course and my digital product business right now, but it's on my radar for my future side hustle income stream that I want to start.

Delores Naskrent (03:09)
Yeah, that's fair. That's a valid reason. You don't really need to rush into pattern selling. It's just a beautiful path to explore slowly too. I've been at it for over 10 years and I've only actively been selling patterns for a couple. Looking at it through an instructor's eyes, I hear a lot of objections or obstacles, but let's just bust a few of those common misconceptions right now, shall we? Yeah.

One of them is, I hear this all the time, I am not that good at drawing and you really do not have to be good at drawing. Lots of patterns are made up of just shapes or stamps or simple sketches and doodles. The next thing I hear a lot is it's too technical. Well, tools can actually be simple once you learn them and platform programs like Affinity Designer or

Procreate, if those are programs you're using already, they're really very beginner friendly for pattern design with a little bit of guidance. Another thing I hear is I have to be on Spoonflower or I have to get licensed to big brands. And that's just not true. You can start with Zazzle or Spoonflower if that's your choice. It doesn't have to be Spoonflower. There are other fabric companies out there that do this as well. And you can own your own shop.

you can use patterns on existing products that you have. Now, of course, we've heard so much about pattern design lately that the other thing I hear a lot of is just too saturated. And I'm literally diving deeper into this in my upcoming solo episode. So this is something I want to bust that myth right away. And there are so many other reasons to make patterns. I, in fact, fell into it myself because I was

designing for a company where I created a placement print and they just needed coordinating fabric to put on the backside of pillows and things. you could, like for example, if you have a product that you make yourself, so just think about it. If you yourself are making a product, a toy, a pillow, you could have the perfect fabric to coordinate with it, to put on the backside of it or to make additional items to go along with that product.

A example is one of my students recently, Melanie, who has created a bunch of placement prints ⁓ for pillows that are made entirely up of typography. They're just words, all different words put together. And so she has now designed these and is selling them on Spoonflower, but has made a whole bunch of coordinating patterns to go with them. So I think that is the perfect example.

Kaylie Edwards (05:58)
Didn't she do a quilt? I think I remember seeing that. She did do it with...

Delores Naskrent (06:03)
No, you know, she hasn't, she hasn't done any, any sewing. She says, I don't know why I'm designing fabric because I am not a sewer, but the stuff that she designs is fantastic and it can be used for anything. So really you can use whatever she doesn't use affinity designer yet, as far as I know, but you can set up with any software that you currently use and

Like I said, Procreate, Affinity Designer are the two that are the most, you know, top of mind. And you can use both ⁓ of those programs on the iPad. But if you use other programs and you have a laptop or you're on a desktop, making patterns can be easy on any one of those platforms. You can even make them by hand.

Kaylie Edwards (06:53)
Yeah, even pencil and paper works if you're scanning and digitizing. The most important thing is just start playing.

Delores Naskrent (07:01)
I can give you a couple of really easy and simple things to start with if you're curious about it. Try just creating one flower, one simple flower, and then turning that into a seamless pattern. The other thing that's kind of fun is creating a grouping of those little flowers and doodles and anything else that you can think of and then repeating those to create a wrapping paper. Next occasion you have coming up, why don't you give it a shot?

The other thing that I love with using ⁓ patterns for myself is using them to work into things like greeting cards or prints that I have. And I have one student right now, Marcy, who is creating a whole bunch of really fantastic lettering. And every one of the letters is filled with a different pattern. And she's making them into some super creative artwork.

There are so many ways.

Kaylie Edwards (08:02)
I'll have to take look at Marcie's work. I've seen some of it in the community but I haven't recently seen anything. This is where you can get creative. Popular niches in surface pattern design include florals, kids patterns, seasonal holiday designs, retro themes, there's even food patterns. You know, you could sell patterns to people who are chefs or people that love cooking, geometric designs as well.

Delores Naskrent (08:32)
Yep, you could niche down by audience too. Maybe patterns for classroom decor or for planners or fabrics for baby clothes or placement prints with coordinates for things like stuffed toys.

Kaylie Edwards (08:47)
Yeah, if you already have a niche with your handmade products or your art that, let's say you sell to collectors, this could be a way to extend your brand further.

Delores Naskrent (09:00)
Yeah, you can sell patterns completely separately as digital downloads. So you could offer them in design bundles. You could submit them to POD sites. You could use them to create all kinds of things. And I have one student as well, Kay, who creates decorative papers that are used in decoupage and in scrapbooking.

Kaylie Edwards (09:23)
yeah, I've seen those in the community. They're really cool, aren't they? Mm-hmm. Yeah, she does all the layering and things, doesn't she?

Delores Naskrent (09:30)
Yes.

Kaylie Edwards (09:30)
Yes,

yeah, so that's another thing. Another audience you could tap into, let's say you sell to like customers, end customers, but you could also sell to other crafters. You could create patterns. like Delores has said, you can do digital papers and things, downloads. You can create packs of digital patterns that they can use in their own crafting projects. Yeah, crafting projects.

is like a huge thing like if you go on Etsy or you go on Creative Market, Creative Fabrica, everywhere you can go to buy digital downloads you will find digital patterns or even digital textures that people can create and it is super super easy to do. Yes and the design wants, sell often model is something we're both passionate about and surface pattern design really leans into this as well.

Delores Naskrent (10:19)
Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely leverage it. I mean if you've got it sell it in more place in the places than one if you can If you're ready to dive deeper by the way my course Mastering surface pattern design in affinity designer is open for enrollment right now and This is a class that I am really excited about it has a live round with feedback and community and weekly guidance

but there's also going to be an evergreen version that you can take any time at your own pace. I think you're going to really love it because I can show you how to make patterns very quickly, very consistently. And really, I think it's something that once you start, you get into it, you're going to really love. I just, I want to make the process easier for people. I love hearing my students say how easy it is to use the templates.

And I think that will really speed up your process and make you want to create more patterns and think of ways that you can use those patterns to make a little bit of extra income.

Kaylie Edwards (11:40)
yes. And if I was starting over again and didn't have this business right now that would be something I'd be doing because I love the whole pattern repeat. yeah, that as an income stream is just so enticing to do especially with your amazing templates that you've got. I see the clips and I go into the community and I see like the membership videos of how you do the templates and I'm just like wow I want to do this.

But then I have to rein myself in and go, no, no, you've got a load of stuff for to do before you jive into doing patterns again. So yes, yes. If you've ever even a little bit been curious, it's worth exploring. It might open a door you didn't realise was even an option for you.

Delores Naskrent (12:30)
Yeah, if you're not sure whether this is for you or not, start with the free workshop. We have a free workshop. It will be linked below. And you can see if you feel that Affinity Designer is a good way to enter into surface pattern design with minimal risk. And I say minimal risk is because the software is so inexpensive. I teach both ⁓ Procreate and Affinity Designer.

repeat pattern making. for those who have tried both, they will be the ones to tell you it is so much more fun in Affinity Designer. It's so much less laborious. I'm making the templates. OK, it sounds crazy, but they're becoming more and more complex, but easier and easier to use, if that makes sense. So.

I've got a template that you literally have two placeholders on the side. You drop your own two motifs in it, in each of those placeholders, and it immediately makes the complete pattern for you. No kidding. No kidding. You got to see it.

Kaylie Edwards (13:41)
I think I may have seen a clip of something that you shared in the community for something as well. What was it? The scatter, is it called a scatter one or something? Yeah, I see a part of it when I had to dip into the community for something when I come back on holiday and I was like, what is going on? I thought that is very cool, but I like, need to read myself in again.

Delores Naskrent (14:07)
you

Kaylie Edwards (14:08)
Yes, yeah, though yes, please please please go and check out Delores's free workshop We will have the replay up because I think that it'll be passed by now when this episode airs but please check it out and just Yeah, just have a look because I think you'll be amazed and will be so thrilled to be joining

Delores Naskrent (14:30)
Well, thank you. Thank you so much, Kaylie And I hope you do come and check it out. As always, keep creating, keep juggling, and most importantly, keep finding joy in the process.